to excavate and explore the site, analysis of the
finds is shedding new light on the Wari and their
wealthy ruling class.
Emerging from obscurity in Peru’s Ayacucho
Valley by the seventh century a.d., the Wari rose
to glory long before the Inca, in a time of re-
peated drought and environmental crisis. They
became master engineers, constructing aque-
ducts and complex canal systems to irrigate their
terraced fields. Near the modern city of Aya-
cucho they founded a sprawling capital, known
today as Huari. At its zenith Huari boasted a
Archaeologist Miłosz Giersz measures
the distance from the imperial tomb to
pots damaged by looters. “They came
very close to finding the tomb,” he says.
0mi
400
0km 400
Extent of Wari Empire
influence, ca 800
NGM MAPS
PACIFIC
OCEAN
El Castillo
de Huarmey
Huari
Lima
PERU
COLOMBIA
ECUA.
BRAZIL
BOL.